Quotes from Henning Mankell

A full description of a person's life, however uneventful or uninteresting, fills a large folder.

Having the possibility to make decisions about what to do with one's life is a great privilege. As far as most people on this planet are concerned, life is simply about survival.

I can't deal with angry people until after I've had my morning coffee.

But then an old man was discovered impaled in a ditch, and once again his world had started crumbling away beneath his feet. He wondered how long he could keep this up.

New love might replace an earlier love, but the old love is always there, no matter what. You live your life on two levels, probably to avoid falling through without a trace if a hole appears in one of them.

Unlike Tania, who was so slim, Rykoff looked as if he'd been given an order to get fat--an order he had been delighted to obey.

You can't interrupt the process of making a key once you've started. It lets a kind of hesitation into the iron. That happens and the key will never sit well in its lock.

Working with keys is always meaningful. Locking and opening is, in a sense, man's very purpose on this earth.

If a policeman is serious about his profession but says he has time, he lies.

I am constantly reminded that we human beings are basically storytellers. More homo narrans than Homo sapiens. We see ourselves in others' stories. Every genuine work of art contains a small fragment of glass from a mirror.

On the one hand, everything is connected, on the other hand, it is not.

No doubt you thought I was dead. I sometimes think I am myself.

He wondered if he was simply starting to crumble under the weight of all the responsibility and was now on a downward trajectory to a point where only fear remained. He

We can never make sense of death,' I said. 'It doesn't obey any laws or follow any rules. Death is an intractable anarchist.

What scared him more than anything else was an old age spent simply waiting to die, a time when nothing of what had been his life was still possible.

I intend to die with a bottle of champagne by my bed. I'll drink a toast to the fact that, despite everything, I was able to experience the singular adventure of being born, living and one day disappearing into the darkness once again.

There will always be new opposites, class struggles and uprisings. History has no ending.

A história não é só o que deixamos para trás, mas é também algo que nos vai acompanhando ao longo da vida.

Good intentions that are not clothed in reason lead to greater disasters than those actions built on ill will or stupidity.

It occurred to Wallander that no matter when death comes, it disrupts everything. Death always arrives at the wrong time —something is left undone.

I will baptise her, he said. You have walked a long way for something you believe in. In our day that is rare. People seldom walk long distances for their faith. That's why the world looks the way it does.

Alati on lihtsam jälgida nupukalt konstrueeritud valet kui leida ähmast tõde.

Yo creo que más bien los atrae el saberse en las cercanías de la crueldad , con la tranquilidad de que no es uno el mismo afectado

I'm afraid I am hopelessly, furiously envious of all those who will continue to live when I am dead. I am equally embarrassed and terrified by the thought. I try to deny it, but it recurs with increasing frequency the older I get.